“Halloween” as a festive concept is nascent here in Portugal. I’ve heard repeated that “only in the past five years” has it emerged at all as a (potential) commercial holiday. … Continue reading The Halloween Post

There is so much cuteness hanging up in my living room on the clothes-drying rack right now. I’ve started washing the little onesies and other baby clothes we’ve gathered, and they are painfully cute. Today, we picked up two ginormous sacks of hand-me-downs from a cousin whose little boy has outgrown them, and it’s quite an ecclectic collection… some of my favorites so far are:

The pimp coat (a white faux-fur hooded coat)

The intellectual sweater (a bland, beige cardigan from Bennetton that looks like something I would have worn to death in grad school- much to the chagrin of my then-boyfriend.)

The little sea-green baby converse that Little Dude is going to ROCK. 😛

Of course, we have things that I brought back from the US and that Mom and Dad brought over, but it’s always fun to see what you get in those hand-me-downs! Lil’ Dude is going to rock. (I know I just said that, but it’s ever-so-true!)

Little Dude also has treasures from America–

Mom tracked down a blanket that Grandma (Dad’s Mom) made for my eldest sibling…as the story goes, it’s the only handicraft she ever made, and she had a hell of a time doing it. It is blue and pink crocheted scallops, and quite special.

Mom made a lovely golden blanket, quite similar to this… all of Mom’s work is impressive 🙂

Mom found a little weensie knit hooded jumper that she’d made for me (and that I’d worn) as a baby…it’s an adorable little yellow ball of cuteness.

On top of this, Mom knitted some very groovy ensembles…another hooded jumper, a couple pairs of baby booties, an extra cool pair of booties that look like moon boots… and, (photos must come soon, I realize) a ‘garlic bulb’. I’ll explain.

I made a ‘monkey sock’ for Bestie’s Baby….a light cotton circular-knit tube, closed at one end, that was intended to function as a blanket that the little muppet wouldn’t kick off. I thought this would be a good idea since I’d been watching my little niece kick blankets off (for the fun of it) while in her stroller and at times when a blanket really was a good idea. I didn’t know if Bestie Baby would like it, or if Bestie would think it looked like some trash, but she appreciated it, and Bestie Baby rocked it very well.

Since that worked, I decided to make a bigger and warmer one for my Little Dude…Little Dude will be living in a much cooler climate than Bestie Baby, so his was knit with thicker yarn…and I made this one bigger so he could use it for longer. It’s pea green with buttery yellow stripes. That sounds nasty, but it’s cute. It’s a ‘pea pod’.

Then, Mom and Dad came for a visit, so Mom made her own groovy baby sock…. Obviously, she made a ‘garlic bulb’ 🙂 Ribbed at the top to cling to baby’s midsection, big around the legs for kicking room, and tied at the bottom, so a diaper change doesn’t necessarily require removal of the sock.

And then (and I realize it’s all gotten out of hand by this point, but don’t worry…it’s the last one), I made a ‘humpty dumpty’. (Apparently, I can’t help myself with the nicknames for random objects. Carry on.) The ‘humpty dumpty’ is a groovy striped sock with legs at the very bottom…the legs can be loosely tied together when the baby is sleeping, so it is just a sock…. but if you want to use it in the Baby Bjorn, untie the legs, slide the Little Dude down, and roll the top front down into a little pillow for the Bjorn… the back can roll up over the head like a little hood. Cozy goodness on the go.

As I said, I stopped after making the ‘humpty dumpty’ as I realized this had all gone too far 🙂

Aside from all of these things, Little Dude has groovy onesie hand-me-downs from Bestie’s Baby… (tie-dye, peace symbols, Bob Marley… the usual) and a Paul Frank monkey suit I found at a consignment store.

My child does not need any more clothes… until he’s one. Then we’ll need more.

And finally, today marks the end of week #23 of this pregnancy 😉 I’m almost 6 months! Craziness 😉

What’s better than taking something indulgent and changing it so you can rationalize less guilt?

Ok. Don’t answer that.

Whatever. The important thing is that I made Cinnamon Rolls in a quick, easy, less-fat-bastard way, and they totally hit the spot. The important thing is that I’m going to tell you my recipe 🙂

(There’s another important thing, too– recently, the culinary rockstars at Chow.com have had the same mindset….so I’ll link to their recipe for healthy-ish pancakes in a moment 🙂 )

(There will be no photos involved. The Cinnamon Rolls à la Gradissima were not long for this world, and the camera was not quick enough to record their fleeting, beautiful existence.)

Recipe: Cinnamon Rolls à la Gradissima

Ingredients:

1 cup regular self-rising flour

1 cup superfine self-rising flour

1/4 cup oatmeal/wheatgerm blend (I did a 3:1 proportion of oatmeal flakes and wheatgerm and threw it into the food processor to make a coarse powder)

2 tablespoons sugar (go raw, if you have it!)

1 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 cup fat free yoghurt

1/4 cup low-fat milk or light soymilk

Filling:

1 tablespoon ground hazelnuts

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons low-fat milk or light soymilk

1 cup raw or brown sugar

3 teaspoons cinnamon

Icing:

3/4 cup sugar

1 tablespoon low-fat milk or light soymilk (add more for a thinner icing/glaze)

Make the filling first-

Combine hazelnuts, sugar, and cinnamon in a small bowl. Add olive oil and milk and mix until damp and crumbly. Set aside.

Make the dough-

Mix together the flour, oat/wheatgerm blend, sugar, and salt in a large bowl.

Stir in yogurt and milk to make a soft dough.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough (or use your hands) to make a large rectangle, about a quarter of an inch thick.

Here, you have two options. Option 1: spread half the filling on the bottom of a 8×8 pyrex and half the filling on the rolled-out-dough OR Option 2: spread all of the filling on the rolled-out-dough. Option 1 gives you a crispy, gooey surprise on the bottom of your rolls, but there’s no wrong way to spread the love here 😉

Roll up your rectangle of dough and goodness.

Slice into rolls. (About an inch thick is a safe bet, but if you want to make fewer thick rolls or more thin rolls, by all means, do it!)

Put your rolls into your 8×8 pyrex. I did 9 rolls and spaced them evenly. They grew to squish into each other in the oven quite nicely 🙂

The baking situation-

As you well know by now, I rock a gas oven with no temperature settings. It’s how I roll. I preheated the oven on medium/high and baked the rolls until they seemed done… not too dark, but just starting to get golden on top.

The icing-

Throw your sugar into a food processor and powder it. Throw the milk in and blend it. If it is too thick, add more milk. I like lots of thick icing, so this worked for me 😉

After the rolls are done, put healthy schmear of icing on each one. The heat will soften the icing and you can spread it more evenly.

Eat these babies hot.

AND THEN….

Here’s the Chow.com goodness I was talking about 🙂

Whole Wheat–Oat Pancakes Recipe

Just because you’re trying to be healthy doesn’t mean you should have to abandon all of your favorite foods, right? Here we doctor up pancakes by using whole-wheat flour and oats, for cakes that are still fluffy yet have a satisfying chewiness that’s actually good for you—sort of.